Paintball Guns Are Dangerous?

I guess so. My first glance at this Sacramento Bee story (if asked for login, use humboldtlib for username and blogspot for the password)on the dangers of paintball guns I thought it was another cry to ban yet something else. Reading further it seems the guy just wants to get the word out that paintball guns have the potential for lethal injuries- his wife having been killed from an improperly removed paintball CO2 cartridge.

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I believe we have at least one paintball club up here. A few years ago I ran into a kid who I knew from juvenile hall. He was at the Eureka Safeway on Harris, near Redwood Acres Fairgrounds. He said he was in some group that met regularly in the woods back behind Safeway and would have at it with their paintball guns. He loved the game. I think I would too. Sounds fun.

Of course, like anything else, they can be misused. It seems every now and then our neighborhood is hit with a rash of vandalism to cars. The latest one being a few weeks ago the vandals seemed to be using paintball guns.

I almost didn't notice it, at first, but while loading stuff into my truck one morning I happened to see small yellow specks of something on my trailer. Closer inspection revealed a big splotch of yellow paint on my left rear tail light with smaller drops radiating away from where it struck. Luckily, it was still wet and I easily wiped the paint off the truck. The force of the pellet actually cracked the plastic of the taillight but not to the point the light had to be replaced.

I'd noticed the car parked in front of me had also been hit in the same spot. I was under the impression that car belonged to someone in the drug rehab place across the street so I didn't bother notifying them.

Later in the day that car came back and parked in the same place and I realized it actually belonged to the daughter of the lady that bought the house next door. I noticed she still had the paint on the back of her car. I pointed it out to her and she said it was the first she'd noticed it.

Then I noticed the paint was still wet. Apparently paintball paint doesn't dry as ordinary paint does, giving you time to clean it up. Good idea. I think I'd prefer getting that on my truck rather than eggs like the vandals usually use.

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Speaking of CO2 cartridges; The old fashioned ones can be dangerous too. I'm sure many of you remember taking the spent CO2 cartridges from bb guns and making them into rockets.

You'd fill them with match heads (NOT THE STRIKE ANYWHERE KIND!) leaving one match head sticking out the top. Set the cartridge on the ground at an angle and light the exposed match head. WHOOOSH!!! Those things could really take off.

That's good, clean fun. Problem is, every now and then something goes wrong and the cartridge will either blow up and seriously injure or kill someone or end up doing damage as a projectile.

Don't try that one at home folks. I read some years ago about some kid in Mckinleyville getting killed playing with those home made CO2 rockets.

Hmmm...I wonder how many match heads it would take to fill a paintball CO2 cartridge?